Telos Foundation Statement Regarding Recent Network Security Disputes

Telos Community,

Earlier this month, it came to the Telos Foundation’s and greater Telos community’s attention that several block producers have been implicated in disputes relating to inappropriate shared access to signing keys of block producers and the degradation of network security. Some of those block producers implicated also hold positions on the Telos Foundation. The Telos Foundation believes that it is prudent to address the situation and make appropriate adjustments to its board and various board member responsibilities in light of these developments as the Telos Foundation holds network security in the highest regards.

The adjustments related to the individuals in question are as followed:

• Daniel Uzcátegui has been removed from the board as of March 11th, 2020 and will serve in as an ex-officio member until end-of-day April 10th, 2020 in the UTC timezone.
• Richard Bryan will remain on the board in his position of CFO, and released a statement on March 10, 2020 announcing the discontinuation of the Telosdac “telosdacnode” block producer.

Prior and unrelated to the events of the past month, Rob James also informed the board that he would be stepping down from his position as Telos Foundation board member due to increasing time commitments. Rob James notified the board on January 29, 2020, and served as an ex-officio member until February 28th, 2020.

According to the bylaws of the Telos Foundation, outgoing board members remain in the organization for thirty (30) days after their resignation or notice of removal as ex-officio members to transition their responsibilities to the remaining members. During this time, they will not take place in decision-making exercises including multi-sigs.

In addition to these personnel changes, it is important to note that the Telos Foundation Transparency Amendment (TFTA), which was developed out of a working group formed by Telos Foundation board member Adam Zientarski in December 2019, will be placed up for vote once the new Telos Decide voting system is implemented into the production Telos codebase. This is expected to be delivered by the Telos Core Development team in the coming weeks.

The TFTA seeks to:

• Clearly define the organization structure to the Telos community
• Separate board members from operational members (executive director, CMO, etc.)
• Set a baseline regular reporting requirement
• Define the Telos Foundation election process
• Transfer power over Telos Economic Development Plan funds back to the Telos Member base at large, instead of the block producers

The TFTA can be viewed here.

The Telos Foundation thanks the Telos community for continued confidence in the Telos Foundation’s ability to act in a manner that is both transparent and a catalyst for growth of the Telos Blockchain Network. In addition to increasing the transparency into the Telos Foundations and its operations, the Telos Foundation is growing its team through the recruitment of industry experts from outside of Telos block producers and will have announcements regarding additional talent shortly.

Go Telos!

The Telos Foundation Board